


Veteran's Day

by NCB1



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Veteran's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8531932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NCB1/pseuds/NCB1
Summary: I wrote this right on Veteran's Day right after Hurricane Sandy hit New York. Now it's Veteran's Day a few weeks after Hurricane Matthew hit North Carolina (my home). I thoght it was appropriate for my first post.





	

Veteran’s Day had been tiring both emotionally and physically for Steve. He had gone early the Brooklyn Veteran’s Day parade like he had done every year as a child and young man and stood at attention and saluted when the American flag went by. 

 

By instinct he had gravitated toward the old men in the blue WWII caps. They were eager to talk about their experiences and Steve was reminded about battles he had fought in with the “Howling Commandos” and learned about battles that he had never known about, especially the battles in the Pacific. He hoped that someone would write or record their memories before they were all gone. And they were going fast, the average age in the early 90’s. 

 

He talked with the Korean War vets that suffered during freezing winters near the Chinese border, veterans of Vietnam who came back to their home reviled and were spat upon and a few that were veterans of Operation Desert Storm. His “catchup” history lessons were now real.

 

The ones that touched his heart were the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The repeated deployments had taken a toll on the young men and women that he talked to. Many were OK and were leading busy lives with work and family occupying their thoughts most of the time. 

 

But it was the ones that had wounds, both obvious and hidden moved him. The young man that balanced on two high tech prosthetic legs, the guy with a service dog that helps with his PTSD (in his time it was called “battle fatigue”) and the young woman that wore her Purple Heart on her uniform next to a sleeve that contained only a stump of an arm. Her new arm would be fitted in a week or so.

 

Thoughts of friends that were gone and the new people in his life swirled in Steve’s head when he returned to his apartment. He had some time before his shift at the Brooklyn community center that was helping with the recovery from Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter that swept through the devastation a few days later. 

 

After hesitating and thinking for about an hour and many false starts he finally got out a piece of paper, stared at a phone number in DC, picked up the phone and dialed.


End file.
